A Variation on a Theme: Gujarati Inspired Fish Curry

The inspiration for this wonderful dish came from a recent Facebook post by Poonam Bachhav.  We love curries in various guises and formats, and this recipe offered an opportunity to experiment.

Living in the Cape Town area in South Africa has its advantages.  In terms of food-related advantages, the Cape Colony was established as a halfway station for replenishment of shipping traffic on the spice route. We have a fusion of culinary arts known as the Cape Malay cooking style as a direct result, not to mention the availability of interesting herbs and spices. However, the availability is seasonal, and not all the herbs and spices of the Orient are available here.  We also tend to fall into culinary habits and stop experimenting.

In this case, the Gujarati Kadhi recipe really interested me.  While it is a dish on the sweet side, and vegetarian to boot, I thought that such a dish may serve as the basis for a fragrant fish curry.  I am a serious meat eater, but not averse to using purely vegetarian dishes as a side to a main meal of meat, especially as a side to meat done on the coals.  It is summer here and braais are the in thing.  This dish also goes easy on spices, stepping away from the big, bold flavors of the Cape Malay or Durban style curries that we are used to here.  It also provides a welcome change from the traditionally heavy meals that we eat here.

I was so excited about the possibilities of this dish that bought a fresh hake and had it filleted.  This fish is light and cooks to a flaky consistency, which presents a risk of disappearing into the dish when overcooked.  My thoughts went out to people living inland, who may not have access to fresh sea fish. This recipe will also work with carp or bass.  Carp also flakes when cooked.  All the inland fishes will work, but the skins need to be removed, else the food will taste muddy.  Carp and hake need to be firmed up, bass not so much, as it is a game fish.  Do this by thawing the fish to room temperature, then placing it on a paper towel and salting with coarse or rock salt to cure for at least an hour. The salt will extract some juices from the fish and the flesh will firm up.

This specific dish is made with curd, buttermilk, or yogurt as the main body of the sauce.  This sauce is flavored with spices of choice, then thickened with gram flour. I reckoned that such a thick sauce would be wonderful for poaching delicate fish.  The only problem that I had was that such a dish would be mushy, with no texture.  However, that problem was soon solved by the inclusion of peas and sugar snap peas.  These also cook fast and provide sweetness instead of the palm sugar in the original recipe.

As this was a new experiment, I decided on a simple flatbread made of yogurt, wheat flour, water, and salt to serve as a side dish. This is an easy dough and can be made earlier to allow time for resting.

Ingredients

For the curry

800 g - 1 kg fresh hake fillets, cubed

1 cup plain yogurt

2 shallots, roughly chopped

2 thumbs fresh garlic, grated

¼ bell pepper, diced

3 dried lime leaves

3 dried chilies

A thumb of fresh ginger, grated

Thumb length of cinnamon bark

½ - 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ cup fresh peas

½ cup sugar snap peas

2x star aniseed

4 cardamom pods, bruised

1x finger length lemongrass stalk cut lengthwise and bruised

1 ½ teaspoon garam masala

Some cayenne pepper or chili powder to taste

Sprig of coriander leaves for garnish

½ lemon or whole lime for the zest and the juice

2 - 4 tablespoons gram flour to thicken the sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Water as required

For the bread

1 cup wheat flour

½ cup plain yogurt

½ teaspoon salt

Water as required

Method

Cube the fish, lay the cubes on some paper towel, salt it using coarse salt, then set it aside to cure for at least an hour, preferably longer.  Now the bread dough may be made and also set aside to rest.  Take care not to make the dough sloppy, as it will go softer as it rests. You need soft dough for this bread.

Fry the whole spices in a dollop of oil or ghee until fragrant.  Add the grated ginger, garlic, and dried chilies and fry until fragrant, then add the onions.  Fry until translucent, then add the yogurt. Lower the heat and add the turmeric, lemongrass, and lime leaves. 

This is where things may get tricky.  The thickness of the sauce needs to be adjusted by adding the gram flour.  Cornflour may also be used. This is the last time that the dish can be stirred.  After the fish is added, stirring will break the fish up into a mushy mess.  The salt should now be adjusted to taste, as well as pepper and spiciness using chili powder.  Add the garam masala, the zest from half a lemon or a whole lime at this point too.  The lemon or lime juice may be added later, just before serving.

Once you are happy with the taste and flavor profile of the dish, add the peas, sugar snap peas, then the fish. Make sure that the mix is boiling before adding the fish. Turn down the heat and wait five minutes, then shut the stove off. There will be enough heat in the sauce to cook the peas and fish to al-dente consistency.

To make the bread, simply take golf-ball-sized dollops of dough and roll it out to resemble a pancake.  Fry this in a dry pan until done.  The yogurt in the dough gives the bread a roti-like consistency.

Dish up and serve with the chopped coriander leaves as garnish.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last edited on 29 November 2021

Traditional Easter Fare

It is that time of year again. Easter. For some reason Easter is celebrated in South Africa almost like Thanksgiving in The United States; Lots of family gatherings and lots of food.

Perhaps it has much to do with being the end of the harvest season. Us city- and seaward oriented folks tend to get somewhat dislodged from Mother Earth and the seasons. But the religious festivals help to keep us in line with the seasons.

For one, I know this festival is very close to the first equinox of the year which falls on 21-22 March. That is when the sun crosses the equator on its way to the northern hemisphere for their summer. It is also the first star gate of the year for some religions.

But here it is Easter. Time for wonderful celebrations and always accompanied with good food and wine. The Cape is no exception and Mother Nature played along very nicely this year and provided lots of good fishing recently. This played magnificently into the tradition to have pickled fish and bread for a picnic lunch in the balmy autumn weather here in the Cape Town area.

I am not a fisherman, so I went to the local fish market by the jetty and bought a fish. Pickled fish appears to be like South African potjiekos, a very personal dish with jealously guarded recipes.

Luckily for us, not all recipes are so closely guarded and we have the famous Cass Abrahams, who published her recipe for pickled fish. This one is special also because it is one of the very traditional Cape Malay dishes, steeped in history.

For me, this was the perfect opportunity to test the Cape Malay style spiciness. The spice mix is simple, the preparation easy and the waiting time forever. I did not even bother doing an internet search, as I had a proper reference handy right on my bookshelf: Cass Abrahams cooks Cape Malay, by Cass Abrahams. The book is available from Amazon books. This recipe is adapted from this book.


This dish is normally made using cheap fish.  The book calls for snoek, which in other parts of the world is called queen mackerel.  However, any fish will do. Especially game fish as they have firmer flesh. The recipe may be made by frying the salted fish in butter or in a light batter. It does not make a difference. I opted for the plain frying in light oil as per the recipe. The dish also calls for vinegar, for which I used apple cider vinegar. This gave a very fruity taste to the dish and I had to add a little regular vinegar to get the acidity levels up. The sugar is added to your own taste, so take care. It is easy to have too much sugar. You can always add some later when the dish has cured for a day or two.

The solid ingredients need to be submerged in the pickle. If not, add a little vinegar and turn the whole lot around. This will get the bottom pieces to the top and allow the top ones some better soaking and curing. Be careful not to break the pieces of fish, else you end up with flaked fish in brine.


Very important: The skin needs to be taken off game fish. The brine or pickle will not penetrate the skin and thus leave your fish not cured and tasting bland. I tend to always skin the fish. You may do this by soaking the cuts in boiling water for a minute or so. The skin will then come off easily. The size of the cuts does not matter. However, I like to have all the cuts with at least one dimension under my control. This means I cut all the pieces to the same thickness, which, in my case, is about 20mm or ¾ inch. This will ensure a similar curing time for all the cuts. Over-curing does not matter, but under-curing does. And make sure the onions are properly cooked, otherwise you end up with very crunchy bits! The onions may be fried in butter before adding to the pickle, if one so prefers.

So here goes.

Ingredients

1 kg game fish. I used yellowtail
2 large onions, sliced into rings
5 thumbs garlic, mashed
250 ml vinegar
125 ml water
10 ml coriander powder
10 ml cumin powder (jeera)
15 ml masala
5 ml turmeric
2 bay leaves
4 pimentos
4 cloves
1 ml peppercorns
Sugar to taste. I used brown sugar

Process

Salt the fish and fry until done. I did mine in batches. Keep these to the side and keep the frying oil. Add the fluids and the dry ingredients, except the sugar, to a saucepan and set to boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for a few minutes until the onions are translucent but still firm. Add sugar to taste.

Pour the hot sauce over the fish and ensure that every piece is properly coated with the pickle. Allow to cool and set into the refrigerator for three to four days. This will allow the flavours to develop and help the fish and onions to cure. Turn the lot every day to get the pickle soaking in properly.

Simple.

This dish goes well with an artisan loaf of bread, real butter and an off-dry white wine.

Bon appetit!



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-03-29

Chicken Curry In A Squall

 

Today was our first full day of working four hour shifts in daylight hours. We are already far enough west to have set our local or ship's time an hour back.

You need to set the ship's time to the time zone according to your longitude, else your day becomes shifted in terms of daylight time. You may end up with the sun rising at 02h00 in the morning!

We are now approximately on the same latitude as Luderitz in Namibia, perhaps a bit more south. It is effectively still winter, even though we are quite far north. I guess these are the last effects from the recent cold fronts passing in the South Atlantic.

We had some squally weather today, along with some nimbo stratus clouds. We even had a few drops of rain. However, the wind dropped back to around fifteen knots (from 24kts!) and we are still sailing merrily along.

I am almost through reading The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. There is some interesting parallels between life in the desert and life on the ocean. The people in these sectors appear to have the similar traits. Almost shying away from the mainstream urban social interaction, preferring the more intimate psychological aspects of social life on the ocean or in the desert. Definitely closer to nature.

The very famous Frederick Courtney Selous fell in the same category. He preferred a lifestyle closer to Nature rather than the social life in urban civilisation. He did dally in social circles before choosing to spend more time in the bush. However, from his writings in A Hunter's Wanderings In Africa it is clear that he preferred the bush over the social scene in England.

Nature definitely offers a freer form of lifestyle. One has a lot more freedom of choice than when living in an urban context where your behaviour is dictated by the masses and conformity is the order of the day. Never mind allowing you to think for yourself.

In addition, along with the freedom comes the responsibility for your actions. And Nature is merciless in dealing with the irresponsibles and chancers. People who do not understand and submit to the forces of Nature, thinking that they can be the masters of their own universes. Perhaps such behaviour may work in society, where one can wield one's power over others. But it does not work when trying this in the desert or the open ocean.

You learn very fast that Mother Nature wields the power, even though you may be allowed to harness this power from time to time.

It was my turn to cook, squall and all. As I opened the cupboard door to get the rice, the spaghetti came flying out and spilled all over the galley. An intricate game of pick up sticks then followed to retrieve the spaghetti. The cupboard was also tidied up, compliments of the squall that showed up our poor stowing practices. Mother Nature at work, I guess.

I made a chicken curry, complete with tomatoes, onions, potatoes and the requisite red masala paste. It came out quite tasty. Sensual may be a good word to describe the spiciness. Not your standard watered down pale version.

For this one I used butter to fry the onions and whole dry spices. Next time I shall use less aniseed, it tends to make the dish taste too sharp.

Ingredients:

400g chicken breast, deboned and cubed

1 can peeled tomatoes

1 onion, chopped Chinese style

3 medium potatoes, sliced

1 piece cinnamon bark

1 teaspoon masala paste

1 heaped teaspoon dry masala powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon garum masala

½ teaspoon aniseed seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

3 black peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

2 dessert spoons butter

1 cup rice

Process

Fry the whole spices in the butter, then add the onions. Fry the onions until they are translucent, then add the masala paste and the dry masala powder. Fry for fifteen seconds, then add the chicken. Fry the chicken until it gets brown and covered in spice mix, then add the tomatoes. You may add a little water during the frying of the chicken as the dry spices soak up all the moisture in the pan. Add the potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are done. Add the salt to taste and sprinkle the garum masla over the dish as garnish. Stir the dish to mix the spices, then remove from the heat and let it rest for ten minutes or so.

In the mean time cook one cup of rice. I added ½ teaspoon of cumin seed to the rice as garnish.

Then dish up.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Last updated on 2013-09-26

The Thai Chicken Curry on a Balmy Saturday Afternoon

We had a yacht club social event on Saturday in the form of a “Cooking around the World” event. The day turned out to be one of those exquisite days for which Cape Town is so famous.

I decided on a Thai style chicken curry.

Most of my South African friends keep spicy food recipes in reserve for cold winter evenings and they live and cook accordingly. They hold that such food will warm you up. The opposite is actually true. The most of the spiciest food is found in the tropics. Just take a look at South Indian style cooking compared to the North Indian, Pakistani and Nepalese style cooking. In the South Indian style saffron would disappear completely in the heavy spices used in these dishes, while it appears regularly in the recipes from the colder regions.

The spices actually make you perspire a little more. Ladies, however, only develop a slight glow, I am told. Whatever you call it, all of it will cool the body down a tad. Hence the spiciness.

My dish tended more to the Northern Indian style to allow for the tender palates of my sailing friends. Actually, I rather like to cook a spicy dish that is not too hot, but flavourful. And here in the Western Cape you get the most amazing spices on your doorstep thanks to our Malaysian and Indian connections of old.

This dish was cooked in my enamelled cast iron casserole. This cookware will stay hot for a long time after you take it off the flame, thereby adding to the cooking time. The dish also rests better in the hotter environment, I like to think. Then you tend to get better flavour development. The pot may take a little while to warm up, but you get the heat back at the end. This is something everybody that has ever used a cast iron pot knows. The cast iron sides are also thick, adding heat from the sides, as opposed to some popular stainless steel cookware having thin sides.

This recipe, as always, gives an idea of what I did. The quantities will get you more or less to the same taste, but these recipes are never the same each time I cook them. Use chef's licence. The process is more important than the actual quantities.

Thai Chicken Curry

Ingredients

1 kg de-boned chicken. Any cut will do. I used breasts. Chopped into 2 cm cubes.
1 can coconut milk or cream. Or an envelope of coconut powder, which is what I used.
2 medium onions, chopped
½ sweet pepper, chopped. This is for some colour. Use a red or yellow one.
1½ dessert spoon green masala (Recipe here)
1½ dessert spoon masala powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon mustard seeds. I used black mustard seeds.
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
½ teaspoon coriander seed
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
small stick cinnamon bark
1 pod cardamom (elachi) pipped. You only use the pips
1 dessert spoon chicken stock dissolved in half a cup of water.
1 cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped
1 dessert spoon garum masala
small bunch chives as thick as your thumb, copped into 1cm lengths. This is garnish.
350 ml jasmine or basmati rice. I used jasmine rice
1 teaspoon aniseed seeds
Some cooking oil. Not olive oil, it clashes with the other spices
Some salt to taste

Process

Marinate the chicken in the green masala paste for 20-30 minutes.Then start with a dry pan, pot or casserole. Heat the whole dry spices (not the aniseed, that’s for the rice) until the flavours start to come out. I normally crush the whole spices in a mortar and pestle to have some smaller bits. The flavour comes out better with smaller bits. Then add a dollop of oil. Add the onions and sweet pepper and fry these until they are translucent. Add the dry powder spices and fry until the flavours come out. Be wide awake that you don't burn anything at this stage, because then everything will be bitter and you will start from scratch.

When the dry spices have married with the onion mix, add the marinated chicken cubes and fry them in the onion mix until they are nice and brown on the outside. They may turn only white because of the amount of fluid, but that is not something to worry about, Just keep on frying them till you think they are done. Not more than five minutes, though, otherwise the chicken dries out.

Add some oil during the frying if the pan gets too dry. The dry spices will soak up all the fluid. When the chicken looks done, add the stock and some water, set the heat to low and simmer the dish for 30 minutes or so. Test the chicken for tenderness and add some salt to taste at this stage.

When the chicken is tender enough to your taste, add the coconut milk. I used powdered coconut, which I dissolved in one cup of water. Check the amount of water in your dish, that you do not end up with a flavourful chunky soup. You may need to use less water or take the lid off and allow the water to cook off naturally.

The coconut milk will thicken the juices anyway, so watch out again for burning the dish. Add the chopped coriander leaves and the chopped chives, along with the garum masala. Bring to the boil, stir through and switch off the heat. Allow this dish to rest for twenty minutes. I rested the dish for the time it took to cook the rice. You can rest it for longer, the flavours keep on developing.

For the rice I used a lot of water and some salt. Cook the rice until it is almost done. The water will look milky from the starch. Wash the rice in cold water until the water is clear. Pour off most of the cold water and bring the pot to the boil again. Add the aniseed seeds and some salt to taste. Allow the rice to steam a little, then take it off the heat. You can reheat the main dish once you washed the rice.

Allow everything to cool down a bit, then dish up.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2012-12-12